Game 15: Taught To Be Proud

As the Yankees lost their way through the mid-aughts, in as much as you can consider years that result in post-season appearances as disappointments, one of the theories floated as to the root cause of their problems was an unhappy clubhouse. Players like Gary Sheffield, Kevin Brown, and Randy Johnson all had excellent track records between the lines, but weren't exactly considered the nicest people off the field.

Talent will virtually always trump character, but the ideal player is of value both on and off the field. In the past two off-seasons, we've seen the Yankees acquire CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Mark Teixeira, Nick Swisher, and Curtis Granderson. All of them are All-Star caliber players, and by all accounts, they are also model teammates and assets in the community.

Born and bred in nearby Vallejo, CC took advantage of the Yankees' trip to Oakland last August to visit his old elementary school, Lorma Vista. There CC and his wife Amber handed out backpacks filled with school supplies to the students, one of several initiatives undertaken by CC's PitCCh In Foundation.

CC Sabathia's philanthropic side has been on display again this week. On Monday's off day, Sabathia traveled to Vallejo. There, he threw out the ceremonial first pitch for the first night game at North Vallejo Little League's Thurmon Field. The field was completely rebuilt this past winter, using funds donated by the PitCCh In Foundation.

Last night, the Vallejo High School baseball team were CC's guests at the Colisseum, spending time on the field before the game and getting to meet CC and other Yankees. Tonight, CC will have a host of friends and family in the stands as he takes the hill against the A's.

Coming off a rain-shortened six inning complete game against the Rangers Friday night, CC is looking for his third straight outstanding start. After a mediocre Opening Night outing in Boston, Sabathia no-hit the Rays for seven in two thirds in his second start, and allowed just three baserunners and single run while striking out nine Rangers Friday. He's issued just four walks on the season, has yet to allow a longball, and leads the AL with a 0.737 WHIP.

Sabathia faced Oakland three times last year, resulting in two wins and a no decision. Over 21.2 IP he posted a 1.15 WHIP and a 4.57 ERA, with most of the damage coming in his 6 inning, 6 ER start against them in April. After some rough goings in his first eight starts in Oakland, Sabathia shined in his only appearance there as a Yankee, allowing just two runs and six base runners while striking out seven in eight innings of work. The current A's roster has not faired well against him.

Opposing CC will be a fellow lefty, Dallas Braden. Now in his fourth Big League season, the Texas Tech product has built on his promising 2009 and is off to a strong start in 2010, with a 2.70 ERA and a 0.75 WHIP through his first 20 innings of work. Braden has faced the Yankees four times in his career, only one of them starts. They have touched him up for eight runs through nine and a third, with seven of those runs coming in his start at the Stadium last July. The Yankee roster has had limited exposure to Braden, but in that small sample they have done quite well.

The Yankees have taken the season's first five series for the first time since 1926. This afternoon they go for their second straight sweep, and beyond the fact that I always want the Yankees to win, I hope they get it. CC Sabathia is a good dude, and he's done some good things during his homecoming this week. Just like fellow Bay Area guys Tea Leaf Green, CC was taught to be proud of where he came from. He showed that pride this week; here's hoping karma rewards him with another strong performance.

I was taught to be proud of where I come from
And I'm so sad that I'm the only one.
Like a cold preacher boy talking only to himself
How did he think that he got to promised lands?

Gone, gone, gone,
Not gone for long,
If you're taught to be proud of where you come from.

-Lineups-

Yankees:
Joe Girardi shakes things up a bit today. Mark Teixeira gets a half day off as the DH; Nick Johnson will pick up some leather for the first time this year. With a lefty on the mound Curtis Granderson rides the pine for the first time this year. Brett Gardner gets his first start in center field this season, with Marcus Thames playing in left. It'll be interesting to see how he fares in the spacious pastures there. For the third straight start, Frankie Cervelli will be calling the pitches for CC.

Jeter SS
Johnson 1B
Teixeira DH
Rodriguez 3B
Cano 2B
Swisher RF
Thames LF
Cervelli C
Gardner CF

A's:
A late scratch from last night's lineup, Travis Buck has been placed on the 15 day DL. Former Yankee farmhand Matt Carson has been called up to take Buck's roster spot. Carson gets the start in left and will bat eighth.

Rajai Davis CF
Daric Barton 1B
Ryan Sweeney RF
Kurt Suzuki C
Jake Fox DH
Kevin Kouzmanoff 3B
Adam Rosales 2B
Matt Carson LF
Cliff Pennington SS

Sabathia To Serve As Honorary Judge

Major League Baseball issued this press release Wednesday, announcing their 2010 campaign in association with Susan G. Komen for the Cure. As they did last year, MLB will sponsor an honorary bat girl contest, with CC Sabathia serving as an celebrity judge. Also on the panel will be Red Sox pitcher John Lackey, White Sox pitcher Jake Peavy, Giants' closer/musical genius Brian Wilson, and my favorite MLBN analyst.

The Yankees participated in this contest last year as well. Polly Tompkins served as the Yankees bat girl during the May 20th game against the Orioles. She was graciously hosted by Nick Swisher, who caught the ceremonial first pitch from her, and proceeded to have a pretty good game for himself.

I'm happy to see continued participation in such events by the Yankees and their players. While it's easy for others to push or embrace the "Evil Empire" persona, the Yankees did an outstanding job last year in giving of their time and talents to reach out to the community and support worthy causes. HOPE Week was a great success in July, and coincidentally or not, their charitable initiatives off the field often ran parallel to extended stretches of success on the field.

And of course, even though they had to shake down Moshe and friends for the domain name, the organization maintains their Yankees Universe charity, with proceeds benefiting pediatric cancer care at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

We all support the team when it comes to what happens between the lines. I think we should all consider supporting some of these off the field efforts as well. In the grand scheme of things, they're far more important than baseball games.

Back with the preview in a bit.

TYU Fought The Law And, Well, You Know...

After dedicating a post to another Yankee blog for all the wrong reasons earlier today, we would like to atone for that by lending a helping hand to the fine folks at The Yankee Universe.

We link to TYU with some frequency and if you have been to the site, you've probably noticed that their name is pretty close to the Yankees' charitable organization that sells T-shirts to benefit the Memorial Sloane-Kettering Cancer Center. Well perhaps because their blog shows up higher in Google search results than the charity, or perhaps due to the fact that Randy Levine founded the organization, they received a cease and desist notice from the Yanks today:

Accordingly, demand is hereby made that you immediately cease and desist from using the YANKEE UNIVERSE name and the Logo, any other Yankees Mark and any other MLB Mark in and as the name of your Website, to promote the Website, to seek advertising any other commercial opportunities, in and as the Domain Name, and in any other manner that would cause consumer confusion, dilution of the MLB Marks, or imply any sponsorship or endorsement of your Website or its contents by any MLB Entity.

Since the Yankees are asking in the name of a charity (and since they've had the name since 2006 whereas TYU was created in 2008), the bloggers are going to step aside. Now they have asked the interwebz to help them find a new name for their blog.

There are obviously a ton of Yankee blog names already claimed, and aside from tossing out variants of existing ones like we did on Twitter today, we are trying to think of something else they could use. Here are a few (some from other places), yours in the comments or better yet, at their site.

• The Pinstripe Post
• Bronx & Beyond
• The Yank Think Tank
• Straight To Twenty Eight
• The Steinbrenner Doctrine
• The Yankee University
• The Bomber's Lounge
• The Pinstripe Universe
• Monument Cave
• The Dead Torre Scrolls
• The Moshe Pit

Murphy's Game

Here are a few things some moron wrote on the internet in the past 24 hours:

• "Teixeria's glove probably helps, but Jeter has never made many throwing errors. He is on pace for 5 this year and has averaged 6.5 per season since 2001. His arm isn't the issue."
  
  
• About Scott Kazmir: "I would be surprised if he went more than 6 innings though, because he's only done it three times this year and the Yanks tend to work the count."
  
  
• About CC Sabathia: "Historically a second half pitcher, now is the time of year that the big fella tends to find his stride. He's thrown 14 innings since the All-Star Break, allowed 3 runs and accumulated two wins. He was just getting warmed up before.

If only Derek Jeter hadn't made a throwing error, Scott Kazmir didn't make it into the 8th inning and CC Sabathia didn't get bounced in the 5th after giving up 5 runs, I would have been right about all of those!

You can't get all the breaks in baseball and I guess if you could control it, you'd have an 11 game stretch were more everything goes right and then load all your bad luck into one game when every single event subject to chance blows up in your face.

The Yanks didn't help their cause either by making two errors that went in the scorebook, and a few more they slipped under the table.

In addition to Jeter's throwing error, A-Rod launched one into the stands in the 3rd inning which allowed Carl Crawford score and left Evan Longoria standing on second with no one out. Incredibly, Joe Maddon had his clean up hitter, Ben Zobrist bunt Longoria over to third only to be stranded there by a Pat Burrell strikeout and a Carlos Pena grounder. Seeing this amazingly weak managerial move by Joe Maddon backfire on him was pretty much the only bright spot of this game for me.

Hideki Matsui had a baserunning gaffe in the fourth after the he drove in a run with a double. He took a wide turn thinking he could advance to second base, but Dioner Navarro read the play perfectly and picked him off.

Nick Swisher attempted a catch barreling into foul territory in the 5th but dropped it, and since his foot was in fair territory when he touched the ball, it was ruled a fair ball. Zobrist advanced to third on the play and it wasn't scored an error. An inning later he let a ball roll past him down the rightfield line allowing Jason Bartlett to score. No "E" on that one, either.

The Rays' defense was the polar opposite. Carl Crawford seemingly covered almost every inch of left field, B.J. Upton nabbed a deep liner and Jason Barlett looked slick at shortstop. The Yanks hit into double plays in both the 8th and 9th innings. It just wasn't their day.

As noted above, it wasn't really my day either. This is one of those games where you take your lumps and move on. You hope you used up all your bad juju at once and get back at it in the morning.

Instant Karma's Gonna Get You

Entering last night's game, Nick Swisher was mired in a long slump, hitting .102/.262/.184 for May. While he was struggling on the field, the ever-positive right fielder didn't take his troubles outside the white lines. On the heels of his charitable outing Wednesday afternoon, Swish spent some time pre-game with Polly Tompkins and her guests at the Stadium. A lifelong Yankee fan, Tompkins is battling breast cancer, and was the Yankees' honorary bat girl as a guest of Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Polly threw out the first pitch, and it was caught by none other than Swisher.

Swisher went on to hit a HR in his first AB of the night, draw 2 BBs and score 2 runs. After the game, he presented Polly with the line-up card as a memento of the evening. This on the heels of Brett Gardner's visit to the Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital last Friday, that preceeded his 3 for 3 performance featuring a triple and the first Yankee inside-the-park HR in 10 years. If you do good things, good things will happen for you. So in a break from our usual tomfoolery here, I'd like to ask you all to consider doing something good today.

Virtually no one can go through life without being affected by cancer in some way. I work for a medical device company that deals exclusively with cancer treatment. While we are a for-profit company, I find comfort in knowing that the work we do can help people stricken with this awful disease. My job does not entail seeing the people we aim to help, but cancer has hit close to me in recent weeks:

• Last week, Mark Herzlich, star linebacker at my alma mater, reigning ACC Defensive Player of the Year, and all around good person, announced he has Ewing's Sarcoma. A month ago he was projected as a top ten pick in the 2010 NFL Draft. Now at age 21, he has a disease with a 5 year survival rate of 70 to 80%. His prognosis is good thankfully, and I'm sure Herzy can win this.
• A co-worker, universally liked and respected in the office, was diagnosed with Stage IV colorectal cancer recently. She's started chemo and is battling like a champ. It's inspiring to see how bravely she's facing this and the constantly positive outlook and good humor she's maintaining.
• Another well-liked co-worker lost her father over the weekend. He had been fighting cancer for some time.
• My grandmother, who can discuss the state of the Yankees as well as anyone I know, beat breast cancer four years ago. My family is now anxiously awaiting the results of tests that could indicate a recurrence.

Below is a list of cancer charities. I need some good karma, so I'm going to make a donation or two. I ask you to consider doing the same, not for my benefit, but perhaps your own, and certainly for those affected by the disease.

• Yankees Universe Fund - benefits pediatric cancer care at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
• American Cancer Society - A charity with which Bobby Murcer worked. Murcer lost his fight with brain cancer last year and would have turned 63 yesterday.
• Susan G. Komen for the Cure - The charity that brought Polly Tompkins to the Stadium last night. MLB also partners with them annually for Mother's Day
• Prostate Cancer Foundation - MLB partners with them for Father's Day
• Making Strides Against Breast Cancer - Another American Cancer Society effort. This link goes to the personal page of Shari, wife of our friend Jason at IIATM, S. Shari is participating in this event to raise money for breast cancer support and can you use our help.

Thanks for listening. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

You Happy Now?

Nice work, Manny, you've accepted a deal that you just rejected under a week ago. Please step forward and claim the $5M you earned by forcing your way out of Boston. Hey, at least you got to shove around our anti-namesake in the process...

All it cost you was your hallowed place in the hearts of Red Sox Nation, your competitive integrity and your overall reputation! Isn't it rather heartwarming to see dubious move by a doobie-ous character go up in smoke? The economic environment certainly conspired against him, but karma can certainly be a bitch.

Rejoice, Yankee fans, because he officially will no longer be terrorizing the Yankees to the tune of .321/.411/.618 for 18 games a year. Good riddance Man-Ram, have fun in Cali. Joe Torre tells me the wheatgrass is amazing.

Number of Days Until Spring Training: Phil Rizzuto (#10)

10 World Series Titles despite spending three years in the Navy. TEN. Ten. 10. Diez. Dix. Dieci. Scooter played for 13 years and won the World Series in 10 of them. Unfathomable.

This is how his playing career ended.

The end of the line for Rizzuto as a player came on Old-Timers Day at the Stadium Aug. 25, 1956, the same day the Yankees claimed outfielder Enos Slaughter off waivers from the Kansas City Athletics. Rizzuto met with club officials, who were discussing ways to get Slaughter on the 25-man roster that had to be cemented within the week for his eligibility for a possible World Series.

Rizzuto realized that he was the player the Yankees intended to release, which they did. He maintained that Stengel and general manager George Weiss reneged on a promise that if the Yankees made the Series, Rizzuto would be put on the roster as the backup for Gil McDougald, the regular shortstop, but Hunter was kept instead.

The part that doesn't really come across in that piece, is that Stengel kept going through the roster and making Phil suggest people, until he finally settled on himself. He was justifiably fuming mad that the organization would go about letting him go in such an undignified fashion, but never burned that bridge.

Rizzuto went on to spend 40 years in the broadcasting booth endearing himself to Yankees fans with a very unique and quirky style, leaving early to beat the traffic and saying "Holy Cow!". I'm a little to young to remember his broadcasting style, but most older Yanks fans I know say that he came across like your favorite Uncle.

In the weeks after he passed away in 2007, a squirrel made several appearances on the right field foul pole, leading many to make the the connection and call the squirrel Scooter.

If he wasn't universally considered one of the nicest guys in all of baseball, maybe he would have spurned the Yankees after the way they let him go and never came back to the organization. Who knows? It's late, but it's probably good that Phil provides some good karma at the end of an angry Tuesday.